


Well-Preserved

by dagas isa (dagas_isa)



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Background Femslash, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dagas_isa/pseuds/dagas%20isa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their old room looks like it's been left for a week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well-Preserved

One truth stands evident, when Vanille opens the door: Someone (or something) preserved this home.

Cie'th may have surrounded the town and taken up tenancy in the train depot, in the school yard, in the warehouse and in the town square, but the little residence Fang and Vanille kept with a few of their adopted family remains intact. Dust blankets every surface, but a quick brush of a finger against the counter reveals a polished surface.

The rust that lingers on the edges of the metal countertops indicates only perhaps a few months of weathering, not five hundred years of neglect. After a good scrubdown, Vanille could even make her signature Oerba Surprise in the giant stew pot. The beds are made neatly—two sets of three bunks, a good, convenient number—and the clutter that lies around is benign, the kind one might expect after a few days of not straightening up.

There's the picture of the two of them, before everything happens. Smiling, hugging, hoping—or at least Vanille was; Fang's feelings had been inscrutable until they were very suddenly not—for something more to grow between them. And though the picture's colors have faded, the faces staring back are a perfect resemblance, though perhaps without the hardness behind Fang's eyes, and Vanille notices as she stares into the clouded mirror, the weariness behind hers.

In the proper order of the world, five-hundred years does things. Centuries do not just pass through unnoticed, and the streets of Oerba are the decayed proof of this. Little rooms do not remain untouched by natural forces, and nor do bodies remain young and vibrant.

Vanille looks at Fang, and they nod in silent and mutual resolve to not look for the others who are likely no more than weathered bits of bone, if they are anything at all.

In fact, when the others begin to question about the others who might have lived there, Vanille pretends—as she does with so many other things—that the memories have long since been lost with time along with the rest of Pulse's humanity.


End file.
